How money is flowing this campaign season

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**Kimberly Adams** (0:31)
It's primary day in several states after months of ads and tens of millions of dollars in political spending. A check in on how money is flowing this campaign season.
From Marketplace in Washington, I'm Kimberly Adams. Seven states are set to hold primary elections this week. Polls open today in Washington, Kansas, Virginia, Missouri, and Michigan, where spending has poured into the primary.
Brendan Glavin is director of Insights at Open Secrets, which tracks money in politics. He says outside groups spent about $75 million in the Michigan primary. One race has drawn particular attention, the Democratic Senate primary, where U.S.-Israel relations have become a source of tension.

**Brendan Glavin** (1:14)
The United Democracy Project, plus some other groups affiliated with APAC, have been big, big spenders all year. But with this race in particular, it's a real hot-button issue, and that's been driving a lot of the spending.

**Kimberly Adams** (1:29)
More broadly, in races across the nation so far this campaign season, Glavin says Democratic candidates have generally raised more, while Republican Party committees currently have more money available to help their candidates. Another major factor? President Trump's Political Action Committee.

**Brendan Glavin** (1:46)
The big X factor is Donald Trump's, the MAGA Inc. super PAC has $400 million in the bank, and that money is all available to be spent on these elections.

**Kimberly Adams** (1:56)
He says Democratic candidates don't have a counterpart to that right now. This is the first major election cycle since the Supreme Court struck down federal limits on coordinated campaign spending at the end of June, but Glavin says it's still too early to know how much that decision will affect fundraising.
Next week, Connecticut, Minnesota, Vermont, and Wisconsin hold their primaries. We'll keep an eye on those races as well.

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**Kimberly Adams** (3:49)
When the Trump administration made massive cuts to the federal workforce, remember Doge, Maryland, which is right next to us here in DC, was hit hard. It lost close to 25,000 federal jobs last year more than any other state. To help out their neighbors, some Marylanders have formed a kind of club where the goal is to redistribute money. Marketplace's Stephanie Hughes reports.

**Stephanie Hughes** (4:13)
Last spring, Fitton Adamson was job hunting in Baltimore. He had recently graduated with a master's from the School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins. But there wasn't a lot doing in public health at the time.

**Fitton Adamson** (4:24)
You know, with the big cuts to the public health agencies, there were a lot of out of work public health professionals who were, you know, more qualified than me for a lot of the jobs I was interested in.

**Stephanie Hughes** (4:34)
Then Adamson learned about a new kind of club where another member would give him some money each month, $180 or so, while he didn't have any.

**Fitton Adamson** (4:43)
It was like a small relief valve to get some money for groceries mostly.

**Stephanie Hughes** (4:48)
Adamson had become a member of the Community Guaranteed Income Club. It was started last year by his friend Alex Zhu, another Marylander, who was inspired by the concept of universal basic income.

**Alex Zhu** (4:59)